For New Life in Jesus Christ

List of Scientific Insights in the Bible

There is so much compelling evidence for faith in the God of the Bible. One type of evidence is that of scientific insight in the Bible. The Bible consists of scientific foreknowledge reflecting natural facts and healthy practices before scientific discovery. Therefore, the Bible was either guided by God or written by very intelligent people who in this case believed in God and thought that they received these facts from God. If the Bible is the production of ancient superstitious minds of men who spoke of nature and their own medical practices, then this would mean that the Bible would most likely err from proven science. However, there are no errors.

Scientific foreknowledge is an old evidence to those who know Christian evidences, and this is just as compelling now. Here are some scientific facts first appearing in the Bible before being discovered scientific study more than 2000-3500 years later:

Cosmology

The universe has a cause that transcends natural laws (Gen 1:1; Heb 11:3).

The universe was set with specific laws from its beginning (Exod 20:11; Heb 4:4).

The universe is fine-tuned (Gen 1; Jer 10:12; 51:15).

The universe is in the state of entropy and wearing out as affirmed by the Second Law of Thermodynamics (Ps 102:25–26; Isa 51:6; Heb 1:10–11).

The universe permits humanity to observe the universe and to reason from causality (Ps 19:1; Rom 1:20).

The states of constellations Pleiades and Orion differ in nature despite casual observation (Job 38:31).

The sun has an orbit of its own (Ps 19:4–6).

Geoscience

The universe exists in a mature state (Gen 1).

Billions of dead things are buried in layers of rock laid down by water all over the world (Gen 6–9; 2 Pet 3:5–6).

There are currents in the sea as affirmed by the discoveries of Matthew Fontaine Maury when he heard Psalm 8 read (Ps 8:8).

There are springs releasing in the seas (Job 38:16).

Lightning has a natural path and the cause of thunder (Job 38:25; Jer 10:13; 51:16).

Wind has weight and a regular course (Job 28:25; Eccl 1:6).

Water moves through the water cycle (Job 36:27–28; Eccl 1:7; Amos 9:6).

Biology

Biology exists in mature state (Gen 1; Mark 10:6).

Life only comes from life, and one genus only comes after its own genus. Louis Pasteur established the Law of Biogenesis affirming that life only comes from life and life of its own kind (Gen 1:11, 12, 21, 24; cf. 30:30–43).

The complex order of the universe is far greater than human design, and whatever is more complex than design is also designed (Gen 1; Heb 3:4).

Blood is essential to the life of the flesh of man and animals (Lev 17:11–14; cf. Gen 9:4–6).

Humanity is fearfully and wonderfully made (Gen 1:26; Ps 139:14).

Anthropology

The universe supports intelligent life that is able to observe the universe (Ps 19:1; Rom 11:36).

Growths in houses should be cleansed with prescribed soap. If such growths remains, then remove portions of the house to prevent the spread of diseases (Lev 14:39–41, 49–53).

The biblical diagnosis of skin diseases prevents the spread of disease such as smallpox (Lev 13).

The ideal time for surgery of an infant boy is on 8th day after his birth (Lev 12:3).

The human body may be opened for surgery (Gen 2:21).

Applied Physics

The ideal ratio for a seaworthy barge is 30 x 5 x 3 (Gen 6:15)

Conclusion

One or two facts may be interesting or even a coincidence, but the number of facts predating the times of recognized discovery compounds probability. How could the writers of the Bible continue to know such things about the world without advanced technology to observe such? God is the answer. The biblical writers claim God as their source. There are no other ancient books claiming God’s guidance that can present such foreknowledge to scientific discovery.

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Published by Scott J Shifferd

I am an evangelist for the church of Christ in Jacksonville, FL. My education is a BA and MA in Biblical Studies. I am married with four children. Anyone can contact me at ScottJon82[at]yahoo.com
View all posts by Scott J Shifferd

29 thoughts on “List of Scientific Insights in the Bible”

The putative foreknowledge presented above would be problematic even if it were authentically able to be labelled foreknowledge.

— which I do not for a moment concede, except hypothetically in this post, in order to focus more tightly on that other problematic element.

Problematic because there is so little “foreknowledge”, even after careful cherry picking
— and incidentally discarding all the instances of “knowledge” subsequently discredited:

Such as, from cosmology (the earth’s creation, and day vs night, could not have predated the sun’s creation, and the sun does not move around the earth)

thru physics: (rainbows are an optical phenomenon, not a meteorological predictor that rain will cease),

thru biology: (the rather extraordinary biblical miscounting of the number of legs of insects, which contradicts not just subsequent discovery but simple observation)

thru neuro-psychology: (mental illness is not caused by evil spirits),

to nutritional safety: (shellfish are not intrinsically unfit for human consumption).

The incorrect instances, aggregated, outnumber the correct ones.

But that is another digression to the point I wish to argue in this post:
Why do I claim it to be a problem that there is so little “foreknowledge”?

I say this because there are SO MANY things an omniscient being could have helped humans by divulging: the rudiments of genetics, the germ theory of disease, the causes of earthquakes, tidal waves, vulcanism and other natural disasters, eclipses, authentic unambiguous cosmology, the rudiments of geometry, mathematics and logic…

The fact that there are no meaningful* revelations on these and countless other topics can mean only one thing: if there was a single being responsible for the Bible, that being did not care for us to understand the world in any useful way.

*(for which the litmus test is: did biblical scholars manage to understand them, to any useful degree, in advance of scientific discovery)

Their absence presents an irreconcilable paradox for the thesis of this webpage.
The webpage in question demonstrates that the Bible suggests (to the faithful) the opposite state of mind on the part of the creator being to the one I have just inferred.

The subsequent discoveries by humans effectively prove that suggestion to the faithful cannot be true, which throws serious doubt on the authenticity of the Bible.

At the very least, it suggest that (if it was not written by humans) its underlying intent, at odds with the superficial promise, was to confuse rather than enlighten.

Andrew, I see that you are struggling to explain the anthropic principle. Why do humans exist to observe the universe rather than not? If the universe is merely the product of time and chance, then the universe would most probably not have been fine-tuned for intelligent life to observe the universe. However, the universe is fine-tuned for intelligent life to observe the universe. Therefore, the universe is most probably not the product of time and chance. A cause of the universe that transcends the universe is also beyond natural laws. Therefore, the cause is supernatural by definition.

Your points are not reasonable. Anyone who reinterprets a position to reject it is dishonest. You reinterpret the Bible to assert that Bible says the earth is the center of solar system. Such are your arguments.

The list above is merely a list of fascinating points of insight in the Bible. The Bible is not a science textbook. Nature is our source of scientific knowledge set by God for humanity to observe (Ps 19:1; Rom 1:20). The Christian faith started and established the scientific revolution. Why? The Bible teaches that God upholds the creation together in uniformity rather than atheism’s endless possibilities of time and chance — randomness. We observe constant order in the universe.

Without Christ, the observable universe is not reasonable. Christ is the best explanation for ultimate meaning of the universe.

I guess you must have been reading another post (not literally, but metaphorically)
My line of reasoning had nothing to do with the anthropic principle, and I am at a loss to know what inspired you to go off on a fine-tuning tangent, which has the additional geometrical peculiarity of being a perfect example of circular reasoning ( I will give another example below).

However I will not pursue rainbows in spite of your tempting invitation, because you have largely disregarded what I’ve already written.

In regard to which:

I do not see how the verse: “Also, the sun rises and the sun sets; And hastening to its place it rises there again” cannot be construed as the apparent motion of the sun around the earth being (incorrectly) taken to be real.
So it is hardly a reinterpretation on my part; it is the face-value default interpretation.

You, on the other hand, must have assumed there is a God behind the Bible as a precursor to arriving at your interpretations, which you then use to prove the existence of the same being on whose existence your interpretation relies.

I claim this with some confidence, because in the absence of such an external intelligence, it would make no sense to take the verse I instance as some sort of metaphor or allegory. It does not seem to permit of a third alternative interpretation.

My post was in rebuttal of your claims that the science foreknowledge “revealed” in the Bible was amazing and persuasive. Nothing more, nothing else, nothing about anthropics.

I was demonstrating that it was scanty, and that it was in fact the omissions which were amazing and persuasive, to the effect that either:

there could not have been divine revelation inspiring the Bible
or it was dishonest divine pseudo-revelation, intended to deceive.

A third alternative occurs to me now:

the humans who wrote it were so poorly attuned to understanding what was revealed to them that the Bible is not a useful vessel for that revelation.

I can see and understand your position and why you may believe this. I have thought in a similar way. However, I was aiming for the heart of the matter. Wrestling over words in a text even the Bible will not produce good results.

What I hear you saying is that when a meteorologist speaks of the sun rising and the sun setting then you deduce that they believe that the sun literally rises and sets. Are they then superstitious? Should you speak down to meteorologists and believers to convince them? However, even if some of the ancient writers of the Bible believed that the sun actually rose and set, that does not mean that God or His revelation means that the earth is flat under a vaulted dome. Furthermore, the Bible also presents that the earth is round hanging on nothing (Job 26:7, 10). How then do these biblical writers who believe in a round earth hanging on nothing think that the sun actually sets and rises from cosmic chambers?

You are not going to convince any believer with such weak claims against the Bible. I have only seen unbelievers deceiving people through temptations to lower their morality and indulge in pleasures. Eventually, you will need to address reality without an objective standard for objective moral values and defend that life has no ultimate meaning.

If you want to address the rest of believers, then you must address the heart of the faith. You must address the historicity of Jesus’s crucifixion and explain the cause of the first believers in Jesus’s resurrection to make any headway. Simply asserting “superstition” is an apparent dodge. Even critical scholars admit that the earliest Christian creed is the Gospel of Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection (1 Cor 15:1–4).

You must explain the existence of causality. You must also explain the first cause that must transcend natural laws. You must explain the relation of greater complex order biology over human design.

You must explain how laws of logic are abstract in a material existence, and how laws of logic can exist necessarily and unchanging without mind and personality to possess it eternally. You must explain how the human mind can evolve for survival and not become too susceptible to lies for survival. You must explain how you have the ability to explain logically any of this in the first place despite that time and chance could have gone another direction rather than having a set laws of logic.

Thank you for your evident goodwill, and your engagement. I won’t take up any of your prescriptions for what I ‘must explain’, not because they would be difficult, and in fact I would not enjoy doing so, but I am not in the business of making claims about religion.

In the closing stages of my last post, I listed three possibilities which explain the sparseness and unreliability of the scientific claims in the Bible, none of which excluded your God. I do not pretend to be able to make any claim as to the respective probabilities of those possibilities, and I am not here to prove or disprove God or Jesus.

My post was intended to demonstrate one of a number of problems with a claim you made, and I suppose, from your decision not to address that problems, that you are not concerned whether your claim has merit.

(I am talking of your claim that Bible’s scientific revelations, purportedly unavailable at that time without divine revelation, confirm the existence of your God – <>)

Can I presume that the claim is neither intended to illuminate the value of the Bible, nor intended to persuade those who doubt its value, but to reward or reassure believers in some way?

That’s the only explanation which occurs to me for why you would not feel the need to defend the claim, as believers will already have made up their minds on the “punchline” issue of the claim, and would not receive additional value if you were to do so.

I don’t think I know all who discovered what. I do know that Matthew Fontiane Maury found the paths in the sea after his daughter read Psalm 8:8 to him. Maury also has written on these things himself, so he is excellent to look up. Maury knew a head of time that scientific discoveries lay in the very pages of the Bible. Also, Ignaz Semmelweis did discover much regarding the hygeine. Pasteur established the Law of Biogenesis. Of the top of my head, that is all that I know.